Sunday, May 27, 2007

Arsene Wenger - A True Genius

Many might not be completely convinced with the genius of Wenger. But I am ,so and I shall try to convince you. If you look at the club,Arsenal has failed to land any silverware for the last two years and lost Henry to Barca.Realistically it looks Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool will fight it out for the Premiership title with the money they are putting in. But for me the most beautiful team continues to be the fourth-placed Arsenal. It is so interesting how Arsene Wenger continues to surprise and create teams of interest and beauty when spending so little in the transfer market in relation to the other three?

The defense which did not concede a goal on route to the Champions Leaque 2005-06 final cost Arsenal less than £5m to assemble. The purchase of Nicolas Anelka cost £500,000 and his subsequent sale to Real Madrid just two years later for £22.3m. The money was used to buy three players Henry ,Pires and Wiltord who all played a significant role in the Double of 2001-02 and the league title win of 2003-04.From the year 1996-2007 has any club grown
at such rate ? I am not talking about chelsea (grown inorganically by means of a Russian Billionaire) .This is where in the genius of Wenger lies.

When I looked upon for Wenger in the wikepedia,I found that he had an economics degree, guess his Economics degree is helping him out all the way. What an inspiration to anyone who's thinking of going into management and wasn't a huge star as a footballer.I guess Wenger in this transfer season along with Da Silva will continue to assemble a mixture of young talent from different nationalities. The Arsenal board deserves high praise as they have allowed him to build the club his own way.

Generation one might be over under Arsene Wenger with the departure of Henry.Now Generation2 is on rise and beware (Manu and Chelsea) Wenger is going to get the titles soon.

Hail Arsene Wenger
Long Live Arsenal!!

Friday, March 30, 2007

Thoughts on Sachin Tendulkar

In this article tribune I have seen a photo showing Sachin with bangles. Is this not disgraceful ? Is this the way you treat a cricketing legend.Do you think she has any legitimate right to criticise Tendulkar? I think she (person in the newspaper) has come out this way so that she can see her photo in the newspaper and she has succeded in it.I do not know why these newspapers cover the exit of india and all the photos of each cricketer returning back to India when they have other important news.

I have seen a recent RamGopal Varma show where he tells that the News Channels are looking to "entertain people".He is absolutely right on this front. CNN IBN makes a show on Nishabd saying "Is India ready for such a relationship".Does this make any sense.This unnecessarily provocates people thinking about such relationships.I think all the news channels are only trying to commercialise every possible aspect .

Coming back to the core issue: "Agreed Sachin is going through a rough patch".But I am quite confident that he will do well and when he retires he will retire with pride and make sure people like Ian Chapell shut their mouths .I am quite convinced that the arrival of Greg had a very bad effect on players like Sachin and Saurav.Greg Chapell frequently changed the batting order.I still say this - the same team with Sachin , Sehwag at the top order and Saurav Ganguly in the middle can do wonders.You cannot change order just like that.You cannot put Ricky Pointing at the top and get Hayden to the middle order.This will not work out in most conditions.I do not understand "flexible batting order" what good it has done for Team India.Chapell for sure should be removed for this and only this thing.

I have seen a lot of articles regarding the issue "Sachin does not do well in a crunch game or his centuries go out for waste". What is a Crunch Situation.I would like to ask people -if India had lost the game against Pakistan and Sri Lanka in World Cup 2003, that would have been called the crunch game. Then people would have told that Sachin did not perform in the crunch situation.I would like to bring out an interesting point that many critics have said " Sachin does not complete the match or They say his centuries go in vain". How may openers have completed matches.Openers set up matches and make the victory unreachable or take it away from the opposition.Thus the match will no longer look like a crunch match.

I believe Sachin should be feeling unlucky that he is born in a land when he was in prime form , other players were so bad that they could not get the "world cup" which any team could have got considering the way he played in 1996 and 2003.In 2003 world cup I believe that we lost the match in the first half.In the 1996 match when sachin was batting -the pitch looked flat and (Score 65) when he got out was 98/1 ,which by most standards can be considered a decent start to a target of 250.When other players cannot do that for the country is he responsible?
I think people should remember how he created immense joy during the 90s till 2003.I can say that in the 1990s when india was playing with one player (Sachin) and ten jokers.I think that every person is indebted to him for the immense pleasure he has given to us when the team was even so bad in the ninties.

"Tell me any other cricket player in the world where people switch off their telivision sets when he gets out". That is the way the team depended on him through the ninties.

I would like to draw a comparison between Sachin and Thiery Henry. Both are regarded as the greatest players in their respective fields.But both have lost major trophies in the world cup finals(2003 Sachin and Henry 2006).Both these players were booed by the home crowd recently .In this year Sachin played below his expectations and we lost the world cup.Similarly Henry played below his levels and Arsenal lost the Champions Leaque too early.Both are facing injuries quite often right now .But I am convinced that both these people would drive their careers back into top gear.This is not because they are so highly talented but they are great characters.They are going through these tough phases of their lives only to achieve greater satisfaction when they win major trophies.